Le Bantou problématique

Bibliographic Data

ID4585265
AuthorsFabien Eboussi (corresponding author)
Year2002
Volume165-166
Issue1
Pages127-153
Publication date2002-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePrésence Africaine (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0032-7638 • E-ISSN: 2271-197X
PublisherCAIRN (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.3917/presa.165.0127
OpenAlexW4242342352
LanguageFR
Citations received14

In a “Bantu Universe” made of forces — stone as force, man as force, tree as force –, are Ethics themselves to be considered as some kind of “force” exterior to man, and must one therefore admit that good itself is a “force” and evil also? If the latter two exist, there must necessarily be conflict between them, and the Negro must take sides; it is said, however, that to the Bantu the world is a banquet at which he consumes the most exquisite forces.Also, the dead are more alive than the living for they exercise their force on the living, and force equals life.If, as Father Tempels adds (Father Tempels, who, twenty years ago “guessed” the Bantu) “we have a static conception of being, they, the Bantus, have a dynamic notion of it”, we have to conclude that Aristotle (Omnis substantia propter seipsam operatur) is Bantu, and that the world is Bantu, with the exception perhaps of Parmenides.But what is meant by all this? By asserting that for the Bantus “force is being”, Tempels establishes an identity which is tantamount to denying all movement, all contestation (of being by force, of force by being). A principle is imprisoned in a so-called movement, in fact, a mass of naive force. Since being cannot be extracted from it, all reflection, all contestation is excluded. Indeed, by asserting that all is force, all is dynamism, one arrives at the most absolute statism. To what purpose? In order that Western Christianity may be able to behave as though it had been sent by the Being hidden to the Bantus, by the being of the Bantus themselves, as if it were the manifestation of all essence, as if it were a pure transparency. In the end, the Bantus will not be able to understand themselves nor will they be able to understand their world unless they look into the eyes of the missionaries.These are some paradoxes to ponder over, including this extract from the writings of the author of this article:“We see nothing that could replace the Bantu’s human responsibility. He has an abstract morality which is at the same ‘ontological knowledge’ of the ‘general laws of causality’ and the ‘elementary rules of Bantu physics’. These constitute the criteria by which vital forces, good or evil, can be distinguished. But once it becomes a question of making a practical syllogism, of answering the ‘quid faciendum’ where good is concerned, the Bantu abandons himself to fate: since an act of liberty is not demanded of him, he does not have to choose, but to recognise blindly the forces that are truly good. He is consecrated to divination, in the precise meaning of the word, not in order to avoid evil (woe) but to practise virtue”.What is left to the Bantu to do? To await, full of gratitude, this male religion, Christianity, which, according to Father Tempels, could not measure itself up to the task: “All of us, missionaries, magistrates, administrators, and all who direct or ought to direct the Negroes, have not penetrated their soul, at least, not as profoundly as we should have done. Were we to re-adjust the situation, were we to understand that it is we who can tell them exactly what their intimate conception of we beings is, they would acquiesce saying: ‘you have understood us, you know us thoroughly’”.The Bantus will finally learn that they thought without knowing it, only their thought was dormant until the missionaries revealed that thought to itself

Aesthetics · Bantu languages · Dynamism · Epistemology · Identity (music · Sociology · African cultural and philosophical studies · Caribbean and African Literature and Culture · Philosophy

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